A. Field of the Invention
The field of the present invention relates generally to storing and then dispensing prescription medications to customers or patients of a pharmacy or other organization that supplies prescription medications to such persons. In particular, the present invention relates to apparatuses and methods that are utilized to store and dispense prescription medications that have been filled by a pharmacist or the like. Even more particularly, this invention relates to such apparatuses and methods that allow the customer or patient to obtain his or her prescription medications without requiring direct contact with the pharmacist.
B. Background
Nearly everyone who has been ill or who has health conditions or any health related issues that require treatment to cure and/or control the progression of the health issue has been prescribed medication, generally referred to herein as prescription medications. As well known in the art, the process of prescribing and dispensing prescription medications are closely controlled by various federal and/or state laws to prevent such medications from being prescribed to persons unless authorized by a doctor, nurse practitioner or other medical professional and being dispensed to persons who were not prescribed the medications by an appropriate medical professional. Most people obtain their prescription medications from a pharmacist, or someone employed by or under the supervision of a pharmacist, who works at a pharmacy. The pharmacy may be a stand-alone facility or, often more common, it may be located in a store or market, hospital or other medical services building, nursing home or other facility that provides pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical products or services. With regard to pharmacies that are located inside a store, the store may be a drug store, grocery store, general store or market or the like. Because of convenience and other personal considerations, many people prefer to utilize a pharmacy that is located in a store in which they can engage in other shopping activities so they can shop in the store while they wait to get their prescription medication.
The typical process for a person to obtain a prescription medication, after the medication has been prescribed by an appropriate medical professional, is to take the prescription to a pharmacy, provide the prescription to an employee of the pharmacy to have the prescription filled and pay for the medication, wait while the prescription is filled by a licensed pharmacist or someone under his or her direction, go to a counter or other location to obtain the prescription medication from the pharmacist or other pharmacy employee. More recently, the prescription may be emailed, faxed or otherwise forwarded to the desired pharmacy directly by the medical professional's office and the person only has to go there to pick up and pay for the medication. Even with the advent of forwarding a patient's prescription directly to the pharmacy, the wait time for a person to obtain his or her prescription medication can be somewhat lengthy. In part, the customer's wait time is affected by the number of people in line to get their own prescription medications filled, the limited number of pharmacy employees available to assist persons and fill the prescriptions and the time it takes the pharmacist to carefully and properly prepare the medication and fill the prescription. As well known in the art, the process of filling the prescription requires the pharmacist or an employee working for or with the pharmacist to place the medication in the appropriate container (often a bottle), label the container with the patient's name and medication information and placing the container in a bag, sack or like carrying container.
Because the process of obtaining prescription medication from a pharmacy or like facility can take a somewhat significant amount of time, many people have their prescriptions forwarded directly to the pharmacy and then time their trip to the pharmacy when they think the medication will be prepared and ready for pick up. Alternatively, the patient will personally drop off the prescription at the pharmacy and then he or she returns to the pharmacy at a later time to pick up their medication. Although generally more time efficient than waiting at the pharmacy for the prescription to be filled, this process requires a second trip to the pharmacy and then waiting in line to pick up the medication. To reduce the amount of wait time for the customer after the prescription medication is ready, some pharmacies will contact the customer via telephone, email or text when his or her prescription medication is ready to be picked up.
Even though some of the above processes do reduce the wait time associated with filling a person's prescription, there is generally little being done in the way of reducing the time it takes the person to pick up and pay for his or her prescription medication after it has been filled by the pharmacist. As well known, when the person gets to the pharmacy he or she will have to wait in line behind other persons who are picking up their prescription medication or transacting other business with the pharmacy, including dropping off their prescription, discussing their prescription medication with the pharmacist, asking questions regarding prescription and non-prescription medications and the like. Any of these or other issues can result in the pharmacy's customer having to wait, often for a relatively long time, to get to the front of the line to pick up and pay for his or her prescription medication. Some pharmacies have a drive-up window that allows the customer to pull up to the window and remain in his or her vehicle, as opposed to going into the store, to obtain and pay for the prescription medication. Although this avoids the time required for the customer to park the vehicle and go into and walk through the store (typically the pharmacy is located in the back of the a grocery, drug or other stores), it does not reduce the waiting time required to for the pharmacy employee to have time to assist a particular pharmacy customer. Often the amount of time a customer has to wait in line to be assisted by a pharmacy employee can be quite frustrating, particularly if the customer is only needing to pick up and pay for his or her prescription medication and he or she must wait on other people having lots of questions or other issues (which may include, but is not limited to, payment or insurance issues). In addition to customer frustration, the pharmacist and his or her employees may feel somewhat pressured to hurry up when dealing with the customers at the counter or in line at the drive up window, which can result in mistakes and/or making the pharmacy customer feel like he or she is not important to the pharmacy.
A number of apparatuses, systems and methods exist that attempt to speed up the delivery of previously filled prescription medications to pharmacy customers. One very common system utilizes a plurality of open bins that are designated with letters and/or numbers to receive prescription medications therein that are then associated with a particular patient. In one example, the pharmacy may have one bin for each letter of the alphabet (i.e., 26 bins) and will put a bag or sack having filled prescription medication(s) therein in the bin that matches the first letter of the patient's last name. While some pharmacies will utilize fewer bins by combining together two or more less common letters for last names, others will use more bins by further narrowing the range of last names that go into the bin. When the pharmacy customer, who may be the patient to which the medication was prescribed or someone on his or her behalf, comes to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription medication, he or she will give the patient's last name to the pharmacy employee at the counter or drive-up window. The employee will then go to the bin associated with the patient's name, look through the bin to find the correct package containing the medication for that specific patient and retrieve the patient's bag, sack or other package from the bin. After obtaining confirming information from the customer regarding the patient to make sure he or she has the correct package, the employee will look at or electronically scan the package for the price of the medication, convey the price information to the customer and then obtain payment from the customer. After the medication has been paid for by the customer, the pharmacy employee will hand the package to the customer. As one would expect, the above process of obtaining the prescription medication can take some time and has significant potential for errors. Even if the pharmacy has a separate pick-up counter or window, if a person is in line waiting for their turn to tell the employee the patient's name, the wait could be somewhat long if each person ahead of them has to go through the same process. In addition, if the patient has a common last name, it is possible that the pharmacy employee will have to check several times to make sure he or she has the prescription medication for the correct patient before handing the package over to the customer picking up the package. This double checking adds to the time required for the pharmacy to obtain and present the prescription medication to the customer and, despite the best efforts of the pharmacy, can still result in medication being given to the wrong person.
A number of machines have been developed to assist in the process of filling prescription medications. Generally, these machines are configured to automatically fill the bottle or other container with the medication from sources of medications stored inside the machine to mechanize, and presumably quicken, the pharmacist's process of taking stock medicines and then filling the container with the appropriate (i.e., prescribed) amount of medication. Examples of such machines, as well as methods of filling prescription medications, are set forth in U.S. Publication No. 2011/0172815 to Kim, U.S. Pat. No. 8,478,441 to Liguori, et al., U.S. Publication No. 2013/0104499 to Moncrief, et al., U.S. Publication No. 2009/0240528 to Bluth, U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,208 to Marder, U.S. Pat. No. 7,228,198 to VolIm, et al., U.S. Pat. No. D190,902 to Brewer, Intl Publication No. WO 2009/115985 to Liguori, et al. and Intl Publication No. WO 2013/119646 to Cashman, et al. Although several of these machines do deliver the prescription medication to the patient, they are configured as a kiosk that is visually and/or audibly connected to a doctor who prescribes the medication via the kiosk and the machine then fills the prescription while the patient is at the kiosk. In effect, these kiosks eliminate the pharmacist. While this may be suitable for certain areas of the United States or elsewhere in the world where doctors and/or pharmacists are not widely available, they are not likely to be suitable to most areas of the United States and the more “developed” countries which require separation between the doctor and the pharmacy and require medications to be filled by a pharmacist.
What is needed, therefore, is an improved apparatus and method for dispensing prescription medication to a patient, either directly or through a person on his or her behalf, after a prescription has been filled by a pharmacist or a pharmacist employee. The improved apparatus and method should simplify and speed up the process for the customer to pick-up and pay for the prescription medication after it has been filled by the pharmacist. Preferably, the improved apparatus and method should eliminate the need for the customer picking up the prescription medication to go to the counter or window of a pharmacy, wait in a line, provide name information to the pharmacy employee, wait while the employee finds the prescription medication, pay the employee for the prescription and receive the prescription medication from the employee. Such an improved apparatus and method should be configured to be able to receive, store and dispense prescription medications for customers of a pharmacy after the prescriptions have been filled by a pharmacist. Preferably, the new apparatus and method for obtaining prescription medications will include various safeguards to ensure that only the person who was prescribed the medication, or a person who has authority to pick up the medication on his or her behalf, obtains the prescription medication from the new apparatus and while using the new method. The new apparatus and method should be configured to be utilized by a wide variety of different types of locations that have a pharmacy which fills and dispenses prescription medications.